It's wondrous, isn't it? The manner in which the press is united in shouting at Donald Trump for claiming that there are 96 million Americans who are unemployed. The thing is though he's right at one level. There really are 96 million Americans without a job. I entirely agree that this isn't what we normally mean by "unemployment," which is the state of wanting a job, looking for one, and not being able to find one. Being entirely content to not have a job and thus not be looking for one is different from this, it most certainly is, but it's still unemployment.

The important economic point here we've got to grasp being "at a price." As an example, we have no shortage at all of $1 million diamonds. All those people who wish to pay $1 million for a diamond are able to find a diamond to pay $1 million for. We do not have a shortage. We have a terrible shortage of 5 carat flawless diamonds at $1 each but that's a different matter. It is, in a market, price which changes to balance supply and demand.

The same is true of employment. There isn't actually anyone at all out there who is truly unemployed. Absolutely everyone could and even will find employment at some price. Those who aren't looking aren't doing so because no one is offering them a price high enough for them to do so, those who are looking and cannot find are asking too high a price for what they're able to do. It is that variation in price that is the issue here.

But later in the press conference, Trump made matters worse when he declared there are “96 million really wanting a job and they can’t get.” Apparently referring to unemployment, he added, “You know that story. The real number – that’s the real number.”

It is unfortunately very far from the real number. There are in fact 96 million Americans age 16 and older who are not in the labor force. Of this, just 5.4 million, or 91 million fewer than the number cited by Trump, say they want a job. The rest are retired, sick, disabled, running their households or going to school. (This number is 256,000 fewer than last year and 1.7 million fewer than the all-time high for the series in 2013.)

The difference between those looking and those not is important and useful. But there are still 96 million Americans without a job--they're unemployed.

I have to admit to being amused by Teresa Tritch's comment in the NYT:

But why didn’t the number jump out at him as impossibly huge? One answer may be that he is so invested in his narrative about the nation’s disastrous conditions – the narrative in which he is the savior – that he thoughtlessly accepts and repeats anything that appears to confirm that storyline.

If only she were so fastidious with the economic statistics she quotes to bolster her own beliefs.

But back to the Donald and the 96 million. That is indeed the number of people without a job and thus the number of unemployed people in the United States. So, he's right there. However, where he's wrong is in not considering the role of price here properly.

Those who want a job and cannot find one are, obviously, trying to ask for more money than their labour is worth. That's why they cannot find a job. And the answer there is to cut the minimum wage. So that everyone who wants to get a job can actually get one. Well, it is the answer if having truly zero involuntary unemployment is your goal.

But on the other side those who are perfectly happy not to be working are those who are not being offered enough money to tempt them into work. Yes, sure, housewives and all that. But imagine, just as a mind experiment, advertising jobs require five seconds of work once a year for a $1 million salary. The job is, quite literally, any hour of any day of the year you desire, walk into this room and press this big red button here. That's it--there is nothing else to the job and you get $1 million for it.

Quite a large portion of those 86 million happily unemployed would take that job--and we'd get the holdouts at $10 million. That is, they're unemployed because no one is offering them enough money to go out to work. They value other things in this life more than slaving for a living. Myself I take it to be proof of how gloriously rich we are as a society, that we can have coming up to 50% of the people not engaging in wage labour.

But it is still true that there are 96 million unemployed out there. We should though make the distinction between those asking for too much for their labour and those not being offered enough.

Finally, as to the import of all this, no, it doesn't matter. Trump, the presidency, even Congress, doesn't have much to do with how many unemployed (involuntary unemployed that is) people there are out there. The minimum wage has a marginal effect but the important stuff is done by Janet Yellen over at the Fed with interest rates.